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It’s bad enough George Steinbrenner was likened to Darth Vader when the Red Sox called his Yankees the Evil Empire.
Now it turns out the late Boss was compared to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
An American diplomat called the Islamic leader “The George Steinbrenner of Iran” in a 2009 confidential diplomatic cable detailing how Ahmadinejad used his influence to fire several coaches on Iran’s losing national soccer team, according to documents revealed by WikiLeaks.
Ahmadinejad hoped canning the coaches would help the team make the World Cup — and greatly improve his own political popularity in soccer-mad Iran.
The move backfired, however. Instead of sparking a Yankees-style championship dynasty, the Iranian team was suspended by international soccer officials because it is illegal for a country’s president to treat his team’s coaches like Billy Martin.
Word that diplomats in the State Department’s Iranian Presence Office were comparing the Iranian crackpot to “The Boss” had Steinbrenner’s family fuming.
“I think that’s a ridiculous comparison,” the late Boss’s son Hank Steinbrenner said this week. “Obviously, it was very inappropriate.”
The cable was sent a year before Steinbrenner’s 2010 death, and read more like a sports report than a diplomatic message.
It detailed the soccer team’s failings, noted that Ahmadinejad put a lot of political capital into the team’s success and predicted that despite the Iranian strongman’s Steinbrenner-like efforts, “Iran’s chances of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup are slim.”
Ahmadinejad went so far as to have his intelligence service goons spy on his players and coaches and prepare dossiers on them, the cable said.
But despite all his efforts to gain popularity through soccer, the Iranian fans came to dislike him so much that they considered his arrival at games a jinx.
Ahmadinejad actually stayed away from an important game with the United Arab Emirates, because “superstitious fans . . . linked his arrival at Azadi Stadium for Iran’s last home match against Saudi Arabia with the downturn in the game,” the cable said. The team eventually failed to make the 2010 World Cup.
While Ahmadinejad and Steinbrenner may have had their penchant for firing in common — with the late Yankees owner changing managers 21 times in his career — their similarities end there.
The Iranian leader’s unshaven face probably wouldn’t have endeared him to The Boss.